Lady Longford was one of the best known Catholic women in English public life in the second half of the twentieth century. She brought up a large family, married to an eccentric aristocrat with a heart of gold.
A most impractical man, he was briefly a Cabinet minister and did marvelous work in prison reform, also writing a small good book on humility and then three volumes of autobiography!
On one occasion a nosey reporter asked Lady Longford whether she had ever thought of divorce. "Never" she replied without hesitation as a good Catholic should, "but I often contemplated murder."
By any set of criteria she had a good marriage, sustained by genuine love, compassion which excluded sentimentality and a sense of humor to cut through nonsense and make-believe.
Most marriages are imperfect, not made in heaven, because husbands and wives are imperfect even where their love is genuine and beautiful. But the institution of marriage is tough and durable.
Most of those who are not married would prefer to be married. They know no other institution protects partners and children as well as marriage does.
Today the Catholic Church celebrates Marriage Sunday with a beautiful Mass passage from the first book of the Old Testament on Adam and Eve, who were joined together to become one body and then a challenging reading from Mark's gospel with Jesus' teaching against divorce and remarriage.
All mainline Christians support marriage, heterosexual marriage, but marriage is neither a Christian invention nor a uniquely Christian preserve.
Long before there were Christians the Jews defended marriage and family as did the best pagans in Greece and Rome.
About 350 years before Christ the greatest Greek philosopher Aristotle, the tutor of Alexander the Great, wrote that "the family is something that precedes and is more necessary than the state." He was right.
Thinking people of every religion and no religion support marriage because it reflects human nature, the complementary and different natures of man and woman and because it brings unequalled benefits.
By its nature marriage is directed towards creating and protecting the next generation. While adults have an important need for love and intimacy, marriage is also for children, biologically connected to their mother and father, who have created them in an act of love.
Marriage might be unfashionable in some quarters, but it has little to do with respectability as it connects the generations, produces better and healthier children and so increases the social capital of society. Children may seem optional for couples, but they are not optional for societies.
High rates of divorce and high conflict marriages hurt children, being more likely to produce poor academic performance, dependence on welfare and adult psychological problems among them.
A good society works to reduce the suffering of children and the rights and responsibilities of marriage are the best way to achieve this.
